This post is about Apple’s Passbook. It’s not about mobile wallets, or Google Wallet, or Square, or anything else. I realize the space is vast and dynamic, but I only have an iPhone, and I’m here to write about Passbook. With that disclaimer out of the way, I’d like to share some thoughts about Passbook, a thesis I’ve developed around “cards vs. apps,” the big opportunity this creates for Apple, and how potentially disruptive Passbook could be.
A few weeks ago here on TechCrunch, I wrote a column about the unbundling power of mobile, and how fierce competition at the application layer is fragmenting audiences. To take this a step further, I believe Passbook Cards could actually unbundle some native applications, stripping out the most essential features of apps and placing them in a format that, in many cases, is easier to access, easier to use and navigate, loads faster than apps, is more intelligent about time and location, and is much more lightweight as a consumer experience.